


Annual Bets

by happyhoney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: sad man is fired, this is literally so short and maybe sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyhoney/pseuds/happyhoney
Summary: Each year students bet on what will get their Defense teacher fired.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Annual Bets

Hogwarts students started taking bets on which fireable accusations would befall each year's DAtDA teachers. 7th-year students tracked bets, and prefects held biddings. When Professor Lupin arrived, students' imaginations went wild; he'd hex a student, he and Professor Snape were scored lovers, he was the one who broke Sirius Black out of Azkaban, he would sell illegal potions to students. He told jokes in class, had holes in most of his robes, and was so different from Professor Lockheart. 

However, after the first class, Snape subbed for it was apparent to most upper-year students that Professor Lupin either was a werewolf or was going to try and feed them to one. The two students who had put their bets on lycanthropy had enough money to buy their whole house three rounds of butterbeer. But students kept a tight lip on Lupin's assumed condition. No one wrote home to their parents or sent complaints to their heads of houses. The idea of a werewolf professor was terrifying, but they were learning. Learning and enjoying it. Learning with Professor Lupin was fun and easy, and not one student had cried due to verbal abuse or physical pain in his class all semester. 

So when the end of term came, and Professor Lupin dismissed himself, Harry was not the only student to visit him in his office. Many students were too afraid to see him; some were too shy, too effected by Snape's harsh words or parents' warnings. But still, some came to thank him. Slid letters that he was too ashamed to open under his office door. Remus suddenly found that he did not know how to talk to students. He did not understand their kindness or their thanks. He listened to students knock on his office door and hoped that they would just leave. 

He never opened the letters slid under his door by a pair of 6th years. One Ravenclaw in his NEWTS level course and a Hufflepuff he had never taught at all. Each letter contained about 30 shrunken galleons- the even split winnings from their bets earlier this year. Both students understood the lack of employment available for Lupin after Hogwarts and didn't have the heart to take it. They wrote that the students had raised the money for an end-of-year-present rather than they had been bidding on his downfall. 

Professor Snape inspected the office after students, and Lupin had left for the Summer. The job would never be his, but the coins sat comfortably in his pocket.


End file.
